Managing your visit to a hands-on science centre (TES 1996)

With around 30 hands-on science centres in the UK you needn't travel far to find one. And when you get there, you could try as many different ways of managing your visit.

As director of Norwich's Inspire centre, and a consultant to many others, Ian Simmons has seen most approaches. Most leave children to explore as they do themselves. Some make children fill up worksheets, a few fill up with tea.

One teacher even marched the class round, delivering a lecture at each exhibit while they sheepishly filled in their sheets. Amazingly, in a classic piece of un-professionalism you'd want to see on film, an onlooker challenged his teaching style. Say no more, he was not pleased!

Ian Simmons feels that getting the best out of a hands-on centre is no laissez-faire affair. In a place where pupils can discover and get enthused about science, a stimulus sheet more than a worksheet is called for. When you see pupils just filling in answers, without exploring the exhibits you'll see why. So questions like "What can you find out about the Bernoulli blower" work better than "Where is the Bernoulli effect useful".

Essentially, he recommends giving pupils very general things to look out for - questions they might discuss, over lunch, on the train or in class and well before they come to any conclusion or formal write-up.

He adds that instead of channelling children's thoughts, they become more adventurous finding out more than by being told what to look out for. And if on your visit, you ever catch a lecture in progress, do break this idea gently.

More Tips

• Take up your centre's offer of a pre-visit. Book this and you may get in free.
• See how the exhibits tie in with work at school
• Use the centre's education officer; ask for advice and ideas.

Inspire (reviewed below) is at St Michael's Church, Coslany Street, Norwich. Tel 01603 612612. Under 3's free. Open Tuesday to Sunday.

The Paris science museum: La cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie

With around nearly four million visitors each year, the Paris science museum now rates as one of the capital's main attractions. While there is no match with the fame of the Eiffel Tower, or the Louvre gallery, this ten-year-old wonder has made it big and well deserves that.

La Cité or la Villette as some still call it, is a tour de force of scientific exhibitionism. It has the benefit of newness in museum thinking – meaning there is more hands-on and a broader appeal with its added thrills. It also has French-ness - meaning that the menu is different: now and then art and psychology here mix with science - like apples mix with cheese.

The place to start is Explora, the core of the museum with its 18 topic areas. As always, you can but sample it in a few hours. A section called Expression and Behaviour deals with human communication – here video screens take you through situations like being in danger, or meeting people and then giving you choices of what to do at each point. Then there’s Odorama - a fine measure of the importance of smell - you see pictures as you are treated to the whiffs of a musty attic, hot chocolate and yup - a cow-shed. Another, the Eye Follower tracks your eye movements to see, how you scan a magazine advert and the results on a racy picture are damning.

Then in a Sound gallery you sit round a huge carbon dioxide filled balloon and can talk to people across the room because it acts as a sound ‘lens’. And then yet more tricks on the senses – just try squirting water, or throwing a ball in a spinning room called the Inertial Merry Go Round – here nothing quite works the way you expect.

Finally, there’s the regular museum fare – a Mirage IV nuclear bomber, a planetarium, and a submarine that the claustrophobic will want to avoid. All together it’s 30,000 square metres worth getting lost in – but much more usefully with an English speaking headset.

After the vastness of the main museum, the side-shows are enticing and pupil-friendly. In Techno Cité, 11 year olds plus can examine and experience mechanisms, manufacturing and automation. Some sixty asking- to-be-played with exhibits have them assembling things, playing with gear cogs, programming video games, and controlling a helicopter. And in a technology case study, they also get to design a bicycle on a computer, see how the various bits are made, and explore the working of a final product. That the captions are in French might cause a stumble, but the French children seemed not to be reading them.

‘Cité des enfants’ is two children’s galleries catering for the 3-6's and 5-12's, which are outstanding. This is hands-on again, but with flair. The younger ones work together to build a house, winching foam bricks and slotting them into place. They turn grain into flour and turn a plastic car into pieces. They crawl inside a shell and turn themselves into a turtle. In the older section of this busy area there's a mini-TV studio where they make a weather forecast, a way to see inside their bodies using optical trickery, as well as a butterfly enclosure where the creatures flutter around their heads.

Just outside is a big screen 180 degree IMAX cinema, La Géode that is worth seeing. Then there's Le Cinaxe - a simulator where you're strapped to your seat, and spend seven enjoyable minutes being thrown around in time with the adventure on screen. The illusion is good anyway, but the 3D glasses certainly help.

A few times a year the Education department runs courses for teachers planning to take groups at a later date. Those thinking about say an Advanced level science trip, can also get a head start with their paper materials. For sure, a good language group would do well here. For anyone else, La Cité is an easily recommended excursion on a trip to Paris. For the rest there are days worth of stimulation: a perception gallery where your eye-movements are tracked as you watch advertisements, a 'Techno Cité' full of computers and bicycles. And never mind the thrills from the wrap-around Imax cinema screen, or the moving cinema with seat-belts, this is science avec beaucoup des knobs on.

La cité des Sciences et de l'industrie is near the Porte de la Villete metro station and open daily from 10-6 pm except Monday. Approximate admission prices for adults: main exhibitions £5. Géode cinema £5.70. Cité des enfants £2. Techno cite' £2.50. Prices are based on 10F/£ and group concessions are available.

Travel: Schools travel specialists should be able to arrange a package. Using the Eurostar, an early start from Waterloo should get you there by lunchtime. Agents include Rail Europe on 0990 300 003 and Cresta Holidays on 0161 929 0000. Specialist tour operators include Club Europe 020 8699 7788 and PGL School Tours 0989 764342. For direct group bookings call 00 33 1 40 05 80 00. The Education department is on 00 33 1 40 05 73 68 or e-mail to djf@cite-sciences.fr. Post: La Cite, 75930 Paris, Cedex 19. Internet: www.cite-sciences.fr

The Exploratory - Bristol  

(Closed in 1999 as a massive new centre Explore@Bristol opens. You can read about its philosophy at www.exploratory.org.uk )

Bristol's Exploratory is England's largest science centre. It's a place where children get their hands on to science and get their curiosity stimulated.

It's also dark here but spotlights pick out things for the children to interact with. They need no telling, and when let loose they shuffle through the shadows and get busy. The dark, they tell me, is a quietening device.

The children move lenses to focus an image or they draw their outline on a mirror and step back to see if 'they' change in size. They will queue six deep to ride a cycle, like fury, to power a television.

They blow bubbles using all sort of wire shapes - round, square or just odd and wonder why they don't get square bubbles. They make a colourful soap film the size of a window (they use American washing-up liquid). They blow yet more bubbles into a tank and see them fall and then sit, mid-air on an invisible layer of carbon dioxide.

You can spot big grins and puzzled faces too. A ten-ish year old does not know what to make of dipping wires into solutions and burning them in a flame. Another, no bigger than an umbrella stand, doesn't quite make the right angle on an impressive hologram of a tiger. But they keep moving on almost drug-crazed looking for the next kick. "Been here before", I ask someone with a carrier bag and three jackets on his arm - a teacher, "Yes, we take a group every year. I love it. I still don't know if they learn. But they love it too."

This, like similar galleries follows the lead of 'hands-on' guru Frank Oppenheimer who created the world's first, the San Francisco Exploratorium in 1968. Today it has grown to 650 exhibits - great but surely enough to numb anyone's curiosity.

Bristol's 150 pieces are more than enough. Not only are they a treat but it's nice to find exhibits not in show cases. For example there's the bubble blowing, bones to examine - none tied down, inks to separate on blotting paper, spinners to colour-in and spin. I saw no abuse and little mess. The T-shirted, gallery attendants, called 'Pilots', could spend their time helping instead of yelping.

Upstairs at the Exploratory you are in the light again. At the time it was full of hyperactive children - just a hint that the light-dark theory works. Here too is the Stradivarium - a gallery dedicated to music and sound which they say is unique. Obviously unique is the world's largest acoustic guitar, complete with its framed Guinness book certificate. A few children are inside twanging the strings, getting a feel for a sound box. There's a large keyboard where they can walk-out a tune, tubes where they hear sounds from long and short pipes and little cubicles where they can test if their pal can identify the things they bash.

Here too are of all kinds of bridges to examine - arch bridge, beam bridge and cantilever bridge. For example, they can walk over a suspension bridge and feel what gives. And on an elliptical snooker table I could hit the other ball, no matter which direction I took a shot.

If you wanted to cover sound, senses, forces, bridges, light or space you might come here. You might use the centre's 'Pathways', teacher's packs that help structure your visit as well as provide ideas for before and after activities. It also offers the Stardome planetarium - an inflatable dome with a projector. This isn't unique but it is a turn-on to stars and stuff that I couldn't recommend more highly. And if this isn't enough, there are still more side-shows to round off your visit.

Snibston Discovery Park - Coalville, near Leicester

Snibston Discovery Park is an unusual mix of hands-on science, industry, history and even snatches of art. Set in unassuming it's a true discovery to find a museum, golf centre, arboretum, fishing lake and a nature trail with marsh and meadow - they easily squeeze into the 100 acre plot. It makes this £6 million project the largest, purpose-built science museum in England since WW2.

You can start in the brand-new, well four year old, exhibition hall not unlike an out-of-town superstore. First up is Science Alive, the hands-on gallery. At a glance you'll see areas to explore the body, weather, and the environment. You can step into a whirling tornado and see how it forms, take readings from a weather station or see the latest pictures from Meteosat, a weather satellite. You can see why the sky appears red or blue as beams of light scatter through tubes of liquid, and you can spin a solar system model to explain the seasons. And in 'windy city' you'll see how the wind rushes past buildings, which you can arrange as you choose.

There's a good spread of secondary school ideas here, but younger pupils could try their hand at generating power using waves, a waterfall and windmills. Or they could assemble the organs of the body, handle a skull or two and ride a bike beside a skeleton, which copies their movements. Then there's a simple and elegant computer survey to do and instantly see that 5% of visitors had no or grey hair. Adults, including the 5%, might want to slip into a soft chair and have a go at, and fail at puzzles like the Soma cube, in comfort.

Outside is Science Play, Britain's first science playground and an idea to commend: here children discover why 'white' clothes help keep them cool in the sun as they crawl through two metal tunnels, one painted white and one black. They might listen to the Panpipes; an array pipes of different length and hear different pitches of sound. They might whisper into a parabolic 'satellite' dish and chat secretly with a pal at a dish some 30 metres away. And there are three seesaws - deceptively ordinary but one is pivoted in the middle, the others pivot on one side. This, I hear, generates nearly all the entries in the accident book and could be up for removal.

You can don a space-like virtual reality headset and seemingly drive dodgem cars, or move about a kitchen and open drawers, or answer the phone. Just mildly impressive for a pound more. It's supposed to help develop spatial awareness but seems to develop headaches instead.

There's more: holographs, a solar house, 3D glasses to watch a slide show, a light gallery and the large scale exhibits on engineering, extractive industries and transport completed with an ice cream van.

Some while-you're-here extras include the excellent guided 'surface tour' of Snibston Colliery. This is well worth the £1 asked. There is a Sculpture trail with a giant toast-rack - filled with slices of coal. Called 'Daily Bread', this is art I think. There is a wheelwright's workshop, which was transported brick by brick from Sheepy Magna 15 miles away - it's a sort-of shrine to range of nearly-lost skills. There's also a willing and active education department and an event programme to tap into. Oh and a smart cafe too.

Snibston also houses the national collection of underwear, politely called contourwear, but ah shame, there's nothing racy on show - a 1920's stocking, 1950's corset and swimming cossies. They tell me that the previous exhibition attracted the wrong sort of interaction. Variety is a key feature of Snibston - the hallmark of a pretty fine day out.

Snibston Discovery Park, Ashby Road, Coalville, Leicestershire, LE67 3LN. Telephone: 01530 510851. Exhibition Hall: Adults £4. Concessions £2.75. Family ticket £10. Admission to the grounds is free. About 10 minutes from the M1 J22, follow the brown tourist signs. Free car park.

Xperiment! Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry

'Feel free to touch all the exhibits' says the sign at Xperiment! a gallery in Manchester's huge Museum of Science and Industry. Xperiment! is the hands-on, interactive gallery where fiddling with things is the main business of your visit. And if you ever confused museums with mausoleums, you're not likely to here.

You walk towards a large camera as you enter - a small mystery until you go inside this human sized camera obscura and see the outside image but upside down, of course.

This is a taster of 'Light' but Sound and Energy are covered too. You'll find many things that touch the curriculum - like a large prism, which splits up light into rainbow colours. Or a 'snooker' game where you aim a beam, twisting mirrors at angles, to hit a distant 'pocket'. Or a cloudy water tank where you place diverging or converging lenses in a light beam and see light rays bend in 3D.

Elsewhere you'll just tickle the curriculum - but who cares: a flashgun fires on a sensitive screen and you can walk away as your shadow spookily stays put. You're beckoned to push your hand into concave mirror and its reflection pops out as if to grab you. Other gentle tricks continue the theme using polarised lenses, curvy seaside mirrors, fibre optics and things that glow in ultra-violet light.

At the peak of the museum season, in the late summer term - children were arriving by the skip. Some were primed with worksheets with teacher's orders to dot every 'i'. Others had a more open brief - 'go and play, write about what you liked'. Opinion is clearly divided on what to do.

A queue formed around Racing circuits - the classic electricity game where children move a metal loop along a contorted wire - they hear a buzzer if they touch it. Others paused, just long enough to see them thinking, before making an electric circuit - it just needed two people to make it work. And others were attracted to, and puzzled by the 'human battery' where they could test pairs of metals, brass, copper or steel and see which generated the most 'juice'. But no one queued around a gold leaf electroscope - did they ever?

Like many interactive galleries, there is no measuring how much this impinges upon how many brain cells per class. What does impinge is a 'welcome to science' message: science is attractive, fun, and not filled with failure. Gallery manager, Bhagwant Singh, will tell you that their job is just part of the business of 'sciencing'. "It's only the beginning of the science process were dealing with. We're not asking them to draw conclusions, or demanding answers all the time, we just inviting them to observe, to feel and see for themselves. We want to put across a positive image of what science is about."

Elsewhere you'll find enough to fill the day: until 6 October there's a display of amazing K'nex models using this unique construction kit, as well as the chance to snap together your own masterpiece. Or see the steam mill engines and trains in the airy Power Hall. Sniff your way round the Victorian sewer. Stare at the acromegalic characters - they seem so ill - in a railway station diorama. Then there are cameras, aeroplanes, and scientific instruments as the museum genre dictates. Nearby are other attractions, like Granada television studios. Do your feet a favour and save that for another time.

Xperiment! is at The Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, Liverpool Road, M3 4FP. Telephone: 0161 832 2244. Open daily 10 - 5. Admission to entire museum £4 with £2 concessions. Under fives go free. Car park £1.50. Well signposted: follow the brown tourist signs to Castlefield near the city centre. Rail: Deansgate station.

Catalyst, the Museum of the Chemical Industry in Widnes, Cheshire

Did you know that the saltpetre for gunpowder was made by boiling rotting manure? Or what a canary resuscitator is? Or why bleach packers were social outcasts? Or why they had no teeth?

The place to find out is 'Catalyst', the museum of the chemical industry and the only museum of its kind in Europe. A key part of its mission is to improve the public understanding of science - something which really does need to happen and without some sort of catalyst, is going to take a very long time. The home of this important mission, and clever pun, is Widnes, Cheshire not too far from Liverpool.

New here is 'Birth of Industry' a gallery built with Lottery money to tell a feature-rich story. It's the story that begins with civilisations in Egypt and China and where they extracted dyes, from nature, for clothing, pottery and cosmetics. It reminds us about fermenting fruit juices to produce drinks, and extracting metals for armour and weapons. And you wonder where chemistry's not-so-good press began!

The story continues on to the industrial revolution - those almost glory days when we established processes for making soaps, bleach, dyes and explosives. If names like Castner, Kellner, Perkins and Nobel, or the mercury cell and the Solvay Process, all echo in your memory banks they start to sound more solid after a browse.

You get a taste of work in the industry: you try to lift heavy tools, while through a phone, workers tell you their tales, and then you see the bleach packers. These were the poor things who stood in giant vessels and shovelled the bleach powder. They protected themselves with layer upon layer of flannel and brown paper. They were paid with twice the money, but the bleach made acid in their mouths - so they paid with their teeth. And after work they would still enjoy a pint, but in their own bar where they could 'pong' in peace.

There's a film booth with documentaries on the discovery of penicillin and polythene. Here fifties' actors play boffins, cigarettes in mouths, while putting ethene gas under high pressure. Those were the days.

Here too is a canary resuscitator that was once used to pump the life back into the canaries after they were overcome by noxious gases in experiments. Younger children will head straight for the more established gallery unashamedly called 'Scientrific'. It explains how chemicals are used today and they can even get their hands on exhibits.

They can compare friction of surfaces such as steel, Teflon and wood or they can compare leather with vinyl and wood with laminate - and in a living room setting. They can test their temperature on a giant liquid crystal thermometer or test sunscreen lotion with different factor ratings.

They'll see the differently coloured light produced by gases such as helium, and neon. And they can sort-of control a chemical plant on a computer screen, only this one has them mixing milk, sugar and water to make 'tea'.

You might even be interested to learn how a nylon carpet is constructed or that 'Gore-Tex' fabric is used to repair heart defects.

Eventually all will spill out of the gallery into the glass outside-elevator and up to the top floor observatory. They'll look over the Mersey as the displays point out the buildings at every part of the vista: the works where they make chlorine, the place they make peroxide - the more trendy chlorine-free bleach, and Port Sunlight, home of that famous soap, where the firm provided workers with housing and recreational facilities. If there's any puzzle as to why you're here, this panorama of factory, river, canal and railway makes it clear you're in the heart of a brilliant case study.

The story of the industry continues next year when a new gallery, 'Chemicals for Life', start in 1940 and takes a look at the chemical industry in everyday life. It opens in March.

Chemistry is a pretty hard thing to do in a museum but this is pretty good. There's something here to give substance to chemistry or humanities' classes as well as primary groups. It is worth preparing for - an initial look round, lessons before and after the visit - as well as tapping into the new education centre. At this centre they put on special events, and run workshops where the pupils make bars of soap and orange squash.

It's sad but true that lot of chemistry has slipped out of the school curriculum. Maybe before people start saying that 'it used to be big in the old days', a trip to 'Catalyst' will help them to see that it not only was, but still is.

Catalyst, the Museum of the Chemical Industry is open from 10 am to 5pm on Tuesday to Sunday and Bank Holiday Mondays. Admission £3 for adults, £2.25 for children, £8.95 for a family ticket. Mersey Road, Widnes, Cheshire, WA8 0DF. Information and school bookings Tel: 0151 420 1121. February '96 Mr Dodd from Cheshire writes: Just looked at info regarding Catalyst at Widnes. The last time I visited and saw the 'History of Polythene (plastics) on the TV there. The people involved weren't actors playing 1950's boffins - one of the people was my Uncle, Frank Bebbington who led the team of chemists at Winnington labs doing experiments with ethylene gas under high pressures when the first 'white powder' was discovered. In fact he donated the small metal container that contained the powder (along with other things) to the Science Museum, London. Sadly, he being the last of those involved, died last December aged 95.  Regards, Ron .

Techniquest - Cardiff

Within sight of the Cardiff bay barrage, one of the biggest civil engineering projects since the channel tunnel is Techniquest, the UK's biggest hands-on science discovery centre. It's bright, gleaming and brand new. It took seven million pounds to take Techniquest out of its original home in a gas board showroom and into the really big league.

In one turn of the head you can take in that it's going to be fun. You could launch the children in and snack on an ice in the cafe, but even the most science phobic, compulsive eaters will want to launch themselves into this must-see, must-do gallery.

There is quite an assortment of devices to interact with and there is no overt theming - so you take it as it comes. You might drop a magnet through tubes made of plastic, copper and steel and wonder why they fall at different speeds. Or pick up a teapot and try to pour a 'cuppa' - there's a spinning gyroscope inside to thwart you. Or play director and make an animated video: you move Playmobil models in front of a camera, snap a frame at each move and then play the film back.

You can put yourself in a movie like they do with the television news backgrounds or you can watch a TV screen and press a button to zoom in - when you'll see 'atoms' or zoom out - when you'll see the earth, the solar system and the galaxy. It's puzzling anyway.

You can blow a giant smoke ring, make a battery with 'orange juice' or sink a boat with air bubbles in a model of the Bermuda triangle. You can hear sounds change in the Doppler effect, as a sound spins over your head. And you can push air through models of the different shapes your throat makes and actually hear how shape affects the sound.

You'll certainly pause at a Heath Robinson-ish machine which uses an Archimedes screw to carry balls upwards, sorts them into sizes and lets them fall through wacky gadgets, accompanied by sounds and surprises. You could say Techniquest is a gorgeous extravagance: but hey, why feel guilty about a science centre so designed and coherent?

For a few pence more, you can visit the discovery room, choose an activity box and settle down to something more focused. Here the children can work on skulls, rocks, optical illusions, chromatography and more. Then there is the small but perfect planetarium - just enough room to take a class, and their teachers too and get a guided tour of the stars.

Behind the scenes are a lecture theatre, science lab and an education department that you could call for ideas for your visit. Education director, and former head of science Bill Dimes advises that a more structured visit leads to a bigger educational payoff. Helping with this, they do theme weeks for primary and secondary schools covering energy, forces, sound, materials and even maths and chemistry. For each topic there are natty 'floor walk' question cards, no pens needed - the children simply clip their answers as they explore. Yes, it helps to focus, though one teacher said they should turn everything else off because it was distracting the class.

While you are here, in the heart of Cardiff Docks, you can stroll around this spectacle of the old, mixed with new or visit the Norwegian church or visit the fish restaurant.

Bill Dimes would like a visit to a science centre to be something like that - an everyday thing to do. "In the States, visiting science centres has become a thing to do - like going for a meal, a match or the opera. We'd like Techniquest to at least affect people's attitude towards science, so that it, like music and sport, becomes an important part of the culture".

Techniquest is at Stuart Street, Cardiff, CF1 6BW. Telephone: 029 20 475 475. Open daily. Leave the M4 at J33 and follow signs to Cardiff bay and Techniquest. Rail: Cardiff Central and short bus or taxi ride. Check the facts at www.techniquest.org

Inspire - Norwich, Norfolk

History gave Norwich a lot of churches. Too many to see in a year of Sundays, too many to match today’s needs. Already 36 of them find new uses: information centres, cafe, and antiques centres. In one - an arts centre, they actually dance on the dead.

Here you can find things that amuse and puzzle. There's a simple copper bowl that ‘sings’ as you rub its handles or a screen (Fresnel) that magnifies but is nothing like a lens. There's a stand-on platform that sends you to and fro as you hold a spinning wheel and you can wrap yourself in a soap bubble as a hoop is pulled up over you. And there’s a large prism, made of water, which distorts your vision and throws colours across the floor, along with those of the stained glass windows. Then there are mirrors that let you see infinity, a ‘black hole’ where ‘planets’ orbit and fall into the sun and an arch bridge to build and walk over.

A geodesic dome provides space and shelter for some exhibits using Light: the ubiquitous Plasmadome, ray boxes and amazing fish that you can see through using a polarising filter. For a souvenir you can set your name in plastic letters and get them vacuum-formed onto a sheet of plastic.

This then is a place to tickle the senses, though director and ‘museum’ designer, Ian Simmonds will explain a more serious purpose. It’s more to do with changing the perception of science as intimidating or something to fail. "We’re saying to people try this, this is enjoyable. Because they don’t have to do this, and the exhibits appear friendly and unthreatening, they get involved and feel that the science they’re exploring belongs to them. They say ‘I can deal with THIS science’.

There are tales of small miracles, told only in the interactive trade. The ‘wonder-smiths’ as someone embarrassingly called them, tell how a visitor has gone back home and wired a plug, or changed a light bulb for the first time ever. Ian Simmonds wouldn’t make such a claim, but adds ‘people do have fun, and they can go away feeling comfortable with science’.

Inspire, with its 30 exhibits is small - compare that with the 150 at Techniquest in Cardiff - so you’ll be round this in an hour or so. But as it is run by interactive experts ‘Science Projects’ and with connections with the Herstmonceau Science Centre in East Sussex and the Exploratory in Bristol it is guaranteed a respectable change of exhibits. With your spare time you might take on Banham zoo, the Otters Trust at Bungay, the dinosaur natural history park, the many railways, and of course the many churches.

Inspire brings a taste of hands-on science to an interative-free zone. Its home is a nice surprise. A visitor from the historic churches trust put it so, "the building has always been used for investigating the mysteries of the universe, you’re just doing it in a different way now."

Inspire is at St Michael’s Church, Coslany Street, Norwich, NR3 3DT. Telephone: 01603 612612. The centre is off Duke Street, close to the city centre and AA signposted from the inner ring road. Parking nearby.